Giselle
by Marguerite1
Summary: Post-ep for "Ways and Means" - He didn't know how to lift her up, how to make her a creature of the air.


**Giselle**

Classification: Post-ep for "Ways and Means"   
Summary: He didn't know how to lift her up, how to make her a creature of the air. 

*** 

The story, ironically, hadn't spread to the one person who would have found it   
funniest. While the others were mocking Josh for having wanted to be a   
ballerina, the woman who really had been one wasn't playing the Swan Queen or   
Juliet, but rather La Cenerentola, Cinderella, stuck among boxes of the   
metaphorical cinders of a Presidency going up in flames. 

Josh remembered finding out about her hidden talent. The conversation had begun   
in the mess when CJ mentioned that the President was attending a performance of   
the San Francisco Ballet at the Kennedy Center. 

"Did you ever dance, CJ?" Josh had asked, knowing CJ's predilection for tripping   
the light fantastic. 

"Not like that. I never had a chance to study ballet." 

"I did," Donna had piped up, gesturing grandly with her styrofoam cup. "I   
started when I was five, and I got to be pretty good. I went to Interlochen on   
full scholarship when I was fourteen, and again when I was fifteen." 

"So why aren't you doing it for a living instead of letting Josh abuse you?" CJ   
had inquired while Josh huffed into his chicken salad sandwich. 

"By the time I turned sixteen, I was five-foot-ten." She and CJ had exchanged   
knowing, sympathetic glances. "It's one thing to be taller than the guys when   
you're in flats, but on pointe - it was just too much." 

Of course Josh hadn't exposed his own preschool peccadillo, not then, because   
they hadn't been subpoenaed and accused and hunted yet and he still had some   
dignity to guard. But today it had slipped, and Sam had managed to spread it   
like a Wyoming wildfire throughout the White House. 

On an earlier, drunken night he had seen one of Donna's scrapbooks, filled with   
yellowing photographs of teenaged Donna in fluffy tutus, with various crowns on   
her long, golden hair. Had seen her in blues and greens and deepest blacks, but   
there was one gauzy white gown that had emphasized what was, even then, the   
ethereal sadness in her elegant limbs. 

"What's this?" he'd asked, pointing to the picture of her, all alone against a   
backdrop of dead papier-mache trees and styrofoam tombstones. 

"Giselle," she'd replied, miraculously tucking those long legs under her as she   
passed Josh a cup of much-needed coffee, and since he hated it when people knew   
something he didn't, he never asked about the story. 

"So, Sam," he asked his friend now that it was dark and Donna had vanished,   
returned, and vanished once again in a cloud of gloom, "CJ called me Giselle. In   
front of Leo, she called me Giselle." 

"You really didn't think I could sit on that good of a story, did you?" 

"Nah." Josh looked out the window even though there was nothing to see but the   
endless blackness of a DC night. "But who's Giselle?" 

"A Wili." 

"A Whatee?" 

"Josh." Sam leaned back in his desk chair. His face was an unhealthy white, his   
eyes bleary from the reading and writing and 'rithmetic of impending disaster.   
"Giselle was a poor girl who attracted a prince. He toyed with her affections and   
when she found out she'd been deceived, she died. She became a Wili." 

"And that's where you lost me." 

"Wilis were the ghosts of young girls. Specifically, young girls who loved to   
dance, and even more specifically were jilted before their wedding day." 

"Well, that's charming." 

"Not really. So the guy felt lousy and went to her grave, where the Queen of the   
Wilis pronounced that he must die as did all men who deserted innocent girls -   
by forcing him to dance all night until he died of exhaustion." 

"This just gets worse and worse." Josh stopped twirling his pen and slumped,   
morosely, with his head in his hands. 

"Not really," Sam said again, in a slightly brighter tone. "Giselle's spirit   
stood by him through the night and he survived." 

"But she's still dead." 

"Yeah, there's that." 

"Great. And people take little girls to see that story?" Josh lifted his head.   
"Donna danced that once. I saw pictures." 

"She still dances, down at the gym. When things get stressful." 

"She must live there these days." 

"Considering what she looked like when she got back from dinner, I'm willing to   
bet she's there right now." Sam got up, stretched, and inclined his head toward   
the door. "I'm going to the mess for coffee. Want some?" 

"I'm good. Thanks. But I'll take a little walk." Josh got up and followed Sam to   
the stairs, then headed off in the direction of the gym. 

There was a window, glowing with mysterious yellow light, and Josh peered   
inside. Donna was there, in a faded green leotard and pale pink tights, her hair   
done in a haphazard bun with tendrils falling around her face like feathers. She   
was using a dumbbell rack as a barre. Effortlessly she extended one leg to the   
barre and slid down and back, bending over until her forehead touched her knee,   
then she stood up and began to dance. 

There was music in her head, or in her heart, for her steps were measured and   
rhythmic as she rose in tattered satin toe shoes. Rising, falling, her long,   
perfect arms embracing the air then spreading like birds' wings. So different   
from workaday, awkward Donna . 

As a boy he'd laughed when he and Joanie went to the zoo and watched ducks and   
swans waddling on dry land. "They're not land animals," their grandfather had   
said as he rolled stale bread into little balls to throw to the birds. "They   
don't make sense on land. You have to see them in the water." 

And so it was with Donna, whose body seemed utterly graceless when she walked   
but was so, so richly beautiful as the dance continued. She was humming to   
herself as she glided across the floor. Deceptively delicate, spun glass with an   
unbreakable core. The usual clatter of toe shoes was absent as she shifted her   
weight expertly, and her slippers whispered against the wood. 

Josh pushed the door ajar, glad that Donna did not hear the creak of the old   
hinges or the slight gasp he made when she took a few running steps and leapt   
into the air, seeming to hang there like an ornament for an impossible second. 

She didn't hear him, but she saw him in the mirror, and she let out a gasp of   
her own. Never turning around, she just said his name, softly. "Joshua." 

He stood behind her, close enough to feel the warmth from her body, close enough   
to catch a note of her faded perfume through the salty sweat. Whatever she'd   
done tonight hadn't gone well - he could tell this from the defeated slump of   
her shoulders when she stood still and became a reluctant, breathless land   
animal once again. She didn't speak to him, just looked into his eyes in the   
mirror, backwards Josh and Donna, them but not really them, the glass reflecting   
only because there was something dark behind it. 

He took a few steps forward and put his palm at her waist. When she went onto   
her toes she was taller than he, and when she leaned against him, her arms   
outstretched, supplicating, he found he could almost close his hands around her   
narrow waist. 

For one instant he pressed his cheek into her neck, soft and moist against his   
day-old stubble, and if he'd known how, he'd have lifted her the way he'd seen   
dancers do, but he was even more helpless in her element than she was in his. He   
didn't know how to lift her up, how to make her a creature of the air. Instead   
he gave her a brief kiss on the cheek as she lowered her arms and came off her   
toes with a dull thud. 

"Sleep in tomorrow, Donnatella" he whispered into her hair. She nodded in   
silence as he backed away toward the door, and through the little window he saw   
her, a wraith, watching in the mirror as a highborn man took his leave. 

***   
END   
***   
Hugs, wine, and chocolate to Ryo and Morgan for advice and   
reassurance above and beyond. 

Feedback is welcome at marguerite@swbell.net.   
Back to West Wing. 


End file.
